Burns My Bacon: Useless Fortune Cookies

Last week, my husband and I both, separately, had super-rough days, and so instead of our usual rice and beans, we decided that we needed to drown our sorrows in a pile of grease and MSG. Which is to say that we decided to order Chinese takeout. The cheese wontons were delectably devoid of nutritional content, the “sesame beef” was mainly breading dipped in sweet and sour sauce, and the Kung Pao vegetables were mmm, mmm, SPICY. Basically, the meal was exactly what we needed. Until we got to the fortune cookies.

First off, let’s get one thing out of the way: fortune cookies do not taste good. Apparently, there are people who like them, but here’s my thought: think of a cookie, any cookie. Now ask yourself, is it better than a fortune cookie? I cannot think of a single instance where the answer would be no. But that was not my problem. That was not news to me. No, the issue at hand, what really burns my reconstituted pork product, is the “fortune,” which is supposed to be the only redeeming part of the cookie. When did fortune cookies stop predicting the future and start offering unhelpful life advice? If I needed more of that, I would subscribe to O Magazine. When I suffer through that hard, tasteless, folded piece of “cookie,” I expect to find out what exciting event awaits me, not a command to, “welcome each day as a fresh new beginning.”

I still remember the episode of Step by Step where Cody keeps opening fortune cookies to solve his life crisis until he finds one that reads, “Seek advice from the man upstairs.” This is what I’m talking about. I guess I’ll just have to go back to horoscopes for a glimpse into my future (and that of everyone else born between November 22 and December 21, but that’s a rant for another time).

3 comments

I feel your pain! The night before I turned 30 I went out for PF Chang’s. I waited the whole dinner to open that cookie and find some inspirational words of wisdom. I unfolded the paper and read aloud: “Some like it hot. Eat more kung Pao.” Pffffffft.

AriveaMay 11, 2012

My sister made the suggestion of putting the words “in bed” at the end of each fortune, it makes many of the awful ones hilarious.